


thornbush

by madwanderer



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:19:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1766962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madwanderer/pseuds/madwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it starts with fire, and ends with feathers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thornbush

**Author's Note:**

> He loved them each separately, mistress and lover. But he could never separate them, for he didn't know how.

They were all so _pale_.

Often, he marvelled in it. It was rare they seemed to tan; Aurora gifted with beauty, he himself hidden with feathers more than half the time, his mistress perpetually light as fae are meant to be.

It never bothered him, he just loved the contrast. His own skin was _translucent,_ blue-grey veins visibly beneath a sheeted layer. Aurora's was different, dewy and almost cream in complexion, though white in its essence still. Maleficent's rivalled the white of a clean-picked bone, and showed nothing of her veins but was often pulled taut over her prominent bones. Though his focus rested more-so on that of the two women, on the differences between their skins and their contrasts, and how he did love it when they pressed skin-to-skin. Aurora's innocence lay in her beauty and he could see it, could see the purity of her skin, cream-coloured and often flushed, so very there and _natural_. Maleficent's was old, frozen, and when she flushed it was like dipping red paint into milk, tendrils of crimson reaching outwards in a sort of bloom-- beautiful in its own way, how it refused to blend in with itself. Her skin was often cold and seemed timeless, porcelain pressed to the soft down feathers (which he himself was rather accustomed to) that seemed to meld Aurora's body together, youth and immortality, spring and winter meeting for the first time.

He loved to watch their hands touch.

He loved it, with a head on a silk-clad lap and a golden mess of hair in his own lap, to see their hands intermingle in the air inches before his face. Maleficent's long spindly _sharp_ fingers lay still in the air, brimming with magic while Aurora's short warm _soft_ fingers toyed with hers like a child fiddling with sticks. This position was one they sank into at ease, though often Aurora was the third to join. Diaval would rest a moment, secluded, hidden with none but himself and his mistress, and she would begrudgingly pretend not to notice when he'd lay his head on a soft thigh, fold his hands on his chest and simply watch the sky, the way her feathers ruffled in the slight breeze. (and, being it his duty, he wouldn't say a word when said wings would unfurl just enough to cover his face from that breeze, her own silent gift to him.

He learnt, rather early on, that to mention these tokens of affection were to eradicate them entirely. Maleficent had always been cautious about love, at least with him. Men were monsters and he well-understood that, being a raven himself... but to occupy the body of a man was to allow her to revisit such ruined memories, and so he learnt to understand her pain, her reservations with him.

_Beastie_ , on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. At first she was reserved-- of course she was, this was King Stefan's daughter, how could Maleficent possibly love her?-- but with time, and with their most grand adventure, Diaval noticed her softening. And it was clear often when the girl joined him, how easily red lips were pulled into a warm smile, and the welcoming hand that greeted the bobbing head of the queen when she came clambering up the hill in search of them. Diaval rarely, if ever, was granted such a smile, but he made-do. To see Maleficent love Aurora was often enough for him, to see her share such a care-free love he well understood he may never have with his dearest mistress.

It was easy, of course, because... as the darling child laid herself atop Diaval, his hands moving to accommodate for her weight atop his chest, back-to-chest and listening contentedly to her idle chattering, he loved her all the same.

She was the delight to all their love, and he knew that by only their shared glances. She was simple kisses, teasing games bubbling laughter that spread like wildfire amongst all three of them. She was his morning swim, his mid-day lover when the girl's kisses led them both a little further into the woods than intended, and his evening farewell when both he and Maleficent would leave for a nightly flight above the moors. She was absolutely the laughter to their day and their sunshine, a ripe rose bringing light and beauty to both respectively blackened creatures.

She was beauty, ethereal life. None could ever compare, and it was just so easy for both himself and his mistress to fall so helplessly, hopelessly in love with the young thing.

And so their bodies fit together, each sharing their own intimacy-- Aurora, protected and held by him as she'd ever been. Maleficent, holding Diaval's head with her thigh, a free hand running through inky hair. And Aurora and Maleficent sharing that secret intimacy the two ever shared in the way their hands moved together, watched eagerly by the man just between them both.

Though of course, they all held their own intimacies.

While Aurora may have been his private love in abandoned gardens and exhausted chasing while their _guardian_ was occupied during the day; at night it was him and his Mistress. At night, Diaval and Maleficent would explore the love only fae knew-- only the _damaged_ knew. Aurora knew how to love wholly and give freely, but she did not know (nor would they ever allow her to know) how to love the broken, and heal shattered hearts with remnants of your own, for her heart was whole and ever-would be. So at night, peace and love and unabashed affection would live its end and the two would fly, raven and fairy, swathed in moonlight and breathing in the comfort of the other, sharing a pain unheard of by their golden dream below. This was a secret, _their_ secret, and it had to be, less they tarnish the girl they both raised.  
Some nights they may talk, but often the two just simply took flight, Diaval a ways behind his mistress and the two did as instinct told them to, comforted by their shared pain and knowledge. It was relaxing, a comfort, regardless of whether or not he could communicate with spoken word.

They were important to him both, day and night, and he couldn't exist without one or the other.

His hand lay on the light silk of Aurora's dress and he felt a hand meet his own, soft, warm, both fingers curling together atop her stomach, the girl's short giggle reaching his ears and causing a smile within himself, a glance upwards at his winged love behind him.

_Yes, he did believe they could last like this._


End file.
